If you've only taken 8 tests, then you've only gone through around 400 questions or so. You've got another 2500 or so questions to go through between the remaining 50 or so preptests that you haven't worked through. Keep working at it! You'll get there!

I don't think going through another 2500 questions if you're still not getting it is a good strategy. REDO the ones you've seen already and get the concepts down before grinding through another huge set of them.

Right, I wasn't recommending grinding through another 2500 questions haphazardly. I was just trying to reassure and encourage the OP - they still have only had limited exposure to these types of questions, and they have plenty of material to work through to improve. The familiarity with the questions that comes from experience makes the LR section much easier as you progress through your preparation. Having said that, EarlCat is certainly correct - go through the questions that you have worked on already and be sure that you are fully understanding them. Why did you get this question wrong? Why did you get this question right? Are you making the same mistake over and over? What question types are you having difficulty on? In order to improve, it is essential to understand where/why you are making mistakes and (perhaps just as importantly), where/why you are excelling.

Yeah, I'm doing all that. For the month leading up to the exam I'll be adding fifth sections from old LSATs. Hopefully that won't throw me off too much.

Any general thoughts from anyone on taking it early? June is a long, long way away.

The 5th sections should be from new LSAT's, not old LSAT's -- at least on the last 4 or so. You want to be sure you're equally challenged on the 5th section, and the newer LSAT's tend to be harder. You should also be sure you calculate your score using the 5th section as well. (Drop your best "real" section, and use the experimental instead to calculate two scores for every exam.) That way, you'll be motivated to do as well as possible on the 5th section, just like on the real thing.

Like I said in my last post. DEFINATELY consider the possibility of taking it early. I believe that you could easily be prepared as early as October.

As far as 5th section goes, I did NOT like the idea of pulling a 5th section out of another preptest because there are only a finite number of PTs available and I didn't want to 'waste' them by using them as experimental sections. Instead, I chose to build my endurance by taking 2 tests a day. Generally with a short 30 min break between exams. If you can stay sharp for 8 sections, you should be able to stay sharp for 5 on the real test day.

I was prepping in the 170-175 range about 2 weeks prior to the exam. The week prior to the exam I bumped up to the 175+ range, with my last three PTs on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday leading up to the exam: 176, 175, 178. I ended up scoring a 177 on test day - 1 point lower than my best PT, though there was no 178 possible on the June administration.

I think that a great deal depends on how well you work under pressure with the stress and anxiety of the real test. For me, that pressure helped. It focused me, it gave me a kind of clarity and intensity that I lacked in my earlier PrepTests. Everyone says: "take every prep test as though it were the real thing," but there is no way to simulate the pressure of the real exam. For me, I began to feel that pressure in the week leading up to the exam, and that is when I really began to score in the range that I was hoping to score. I had a ton of test anxiety, but I'd taken every released PT, gone through all the books, and I knew that I was prepared. I was able to channel that pressure and anxiety into the exam in a positive way.

To the OP: Great work on your prep thus far! Your challenge is going to be keeping your LSAT skills sharp over the next 11 months until your anticipated test date. I found that when I took a few weeks off of prep my PT scores would drop a few points and it would take a few days of studying to get those points back. If I were you, I would at least consider the possibility of pushing up your exam date to February, December, or even October. At the rate you are going, you will run out of Prep Tests! In the two weeks prior to the exam, I was taking 1 or 2 prep tests every day. I probably went through 20 PTs in the 14 days leading up to the real exam, and probably would have taken more if I didn't run out of PTs. I'm sure that was probably excessive, but I was glad to have plenty of fresh material to work through. Keep up the work, and consider other test dates, you may not need a full 11 more months of prep if your scores become more consistent.

Hey, I am chill, and its not like 3 of the 6 sticky threads AT THE TOP of the board index (they are stickied so they stay at the top FOR A REASON, Earlcat did a fine job with that) don't cover SOOOOOOO much of the important basics. Not trying to be a d!ck, just providing straight up harsh reality, anybody that does not take a few minutes to read a few things and do a little research and THINK, especially with things that are RIGHT in FRONT OF THEIR face and well organized WILL NOT perform well on the LSAT, WILL NOT GET ACCEPTED to a good LS, and God forbid if such a person manages to get into A LS (why am I thinking Cooley?), they will fail miserably unless they get their act together and realize that this entire process REQUIRES doing a LOT of READING, RESEARCH and THINKING. This process is not easy boys and girls and it requires a LOT of work! So there it is, if someone can't handle that and wants to just look for some easy quick fix/magic bullet to make it easy and to avoid the work and wants other people to do the very BASIC work for them, they should SERIOUSLY reconsider trying to become a lawyer. Yeah, it sucks I know, but hey, I didn't create the system, but it is what it is. Call this some tough love from Cliffy.

And case in point, user Tracy T came off as lazy and such with her first few posts, I nailed her on it and she quickly woke up or whatever and with her subsequent posts has demonstrated that she is putting in the work and seems to show that she has what it takes to deal with all this and is somebody that will likely succeed and excel in the process and she also demonstrates a decent sense of humor as well. Learn from it people, or just go to the movies with friends and complain that life is not fair and that you got screwed by the man. Your choice.

Just when you thought this guy's posts couldn't get more irrelevant and unhelpful... At least now we can appreciate his brevity henceforth.

I've solved about eight real-practice exams from 10 actual official LSAT book after reviewing the logical reasoning bible and i am getting my butt kicked in LR (7-14 wrong per section). is there anyway i can improve this? should i go through LR bible once more and literally memorize every page?

I'll try and get this thread back on track...

It isn't so much about memorization as it is about understanding and internalizing the concepts and methods presented in the LRB.

At this point, I would recommend working through the LRB again, and working through many, many untimed LR questions. I'd try going through a few questions at a time, checking your answers and thoroughly reviewing after every few questions.

Its all about working through questions, understanding why you are making errors, and correcting yourself.

If you've only taken 8 tests, then you've only gone through around 400 questions or so. You've got another 2500 or so questions to go through between the remaining 50 or so preptests that you haven't worked through. Keep working at it! You'll get there!

At the start of my prep I bought a vintage Harvard T-Shirt to inspire me to score a high. I wore the same shirt to take every prep test and on exam day.

Please tell me it was a Harvard LAW t-shirt. You're going to break my heart otherwise.

-From a rival UG...yeah, the football games stink, but we take it seriously.[/quote

Haha,

Yes, it was a HLS shirt.

Also, I don't believe that I've congratulated you on your LSAT score yet. Way to go! I wish I'd have gotten an extra 2 questions correct . I missed all 4 questions on that damn groupthink passage. Oh well... I can't complain.